1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooking stove comprising heating means, and in particular, to a cooking stove comprising an operation portion provided on a top surface of a top plate to instruct the heating means to be actuated.
2. Description of the Related Art
A drop-in type cooking stove has hitherto been known in which a cooking stove main body 101 is embedded in an opening formed at a counter top of a system kitchen as shown in FIG. 15. In this cooking stove, operation knobs 103a and 103b are provided on a glass top plate 102 covering a top surface of the cooking stove main body 101, in which the gas burners 100a and 100b are accommodated; the operation knobs 103a and 103b are used to ignite and extinguish the gas burners 100a and 100b and to adjust the heating power of the gas burners 100a and 100b (see, for example, Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 58-186302).
Such a cooking stove does not require an opening in a front surface of the counter top so that a user can access an operation portion through the opening. A cooking stove can be easily installed at the counter top. The gas burners can be ignited or extinguished or their heating power adjusted using the operation knobs 103a and 103b, provided on the top plate 102 and seen easily by a user. This enables the user to operate the cooking stove easily and efficiently.
In the cooking stove shown in FIG. 15, the operation knobs 103a and 103b are arranged on and projected from the top surface of the glass top plate 102, obstructing cooking. It is thus conceivable to flatten the top surface of the glass top plate 102 by constructing, as means for operating the gas burners 100a and 100b, a touch switch comprising a detecting portion composed of an electrical capacitance sensor and provided on a back surface of the glass top plate 102 and an operation portion provided on a front surface of the glass top plate 102.
However, if the touch switch is thus provided, it may be turned on when covered with a cooking material boiling over from a pan placed on a trivet 104a or 104b or an object having fallen on the glass top plate 102. Then, when the user is cooking using, for example, only the right burner 100b, an ignition switch for the left burner 100a may be turned on by a cooking material boiling over from a pan placed on the trivet 104b of the right burner 100b. Thus, disadvantageously, the left burner 100a is ignited.
It is thus an object of the present invention to eliminate such a disadvantage and to provide a cooking stove that prevents the execution of a process such as ignition of a burner when a touch switch changes from a non-sensing state to a sensing state owing to a factor different from the user's operation.